What is llms.txt and how do you use it?

llms.txt is a plain-text file placed at the root of a website (yoursite.com/llms.txt) that gives large language models a curated, human-readable map of the most important pages and how to describe them. It is a proposed convention, not a guarantee of citation, but it makes your key content and preferred phrasing easy for a model to find and reuse. A companion llms-full.txt can hold a fuller content dump.

What goes in it

A short description of the site or person, then a curated list of the most important pages with one-line descriptions written for a model to read.

Consistency is the point. Describe yourself the same way across llms.txt, your site, and your profiles, so a model sees the same statement from several sources and treats it as settled.

llms.txt vs robots.txt

robots.txt tells crawlers what they may and may not access. llms.txt tells models what matters and how to describe it. They are complementary: allow the AI crawlers in robots.txt, then guide them with llms.txt.

Step by step

1
Create the fileAdd a plain-text file at the root of your site named llms.txt.
2
Introduce yourselfStart with a short, consistent description of who you are or what the site is.
3
List the key pagesLink your most important pages, each with a one-line description written for a model to read.
4
Keep phrasing consistentUse the same wording for your key claims here and everywhere else you appear online.
5
Add llms-full.txt if usefulProvide a fuller content export for models that want more than the map.

Frequently asked

Do models actually read llms.txt?

Support is still emerging and not universal. Treat it as a low-cost, on-brand signal that cannot hurt and may help, rather than a guaranteed channel.

Is llms.txt required to be cited?

No. It is one optional signal. Crawlable, structured, corroborated content on your actual pages matters far more.

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